there is a lot of deep seated and justified angst about this....however I present you with this startling piece of information which i am sure you will agree contradicts the Sainsburys message.....surely this"oversite"can be rectified?

How duplicitous can 'the corporate' become. Makes me feel queasy. If only it was just the one Corporation. But I'm pretty sure, its every last one of them. Is there nothing that can not be sold for profit? Do you think they sleep at night? How?

Incidentally, I'm from Rochester. I've got a lot to be queasy about at the moment. So ashamed, and embarrassed.

How duplicitous can 'the corporate' become. Makes me feel queasy. If only it was just the one Corporation. But I'm pretty sure, its every last one of them. Is there nothing that can not be sold for profit? Do you think they sleep at night? How?

Incidentally, I'm from Rochester. I've got a lot to be queasy about at the moment. So ashamed, and embarrassed.

I visited Rochester last summer - my friend Satu lives there - I can see how it might attract the more genteel Tory voter, but from what I saw of the outlying towns, I can guess why they picked up the extreme vote - Labour is losing its grip in places like Strood, where it should be rallying people. I do worry about the next election, as much as I like the upsurge in Green party popularity.

Anybody on here who is friends with me on FB might know my views on this ad. Won't open the subject again just in case I get called a cynical leftie. But, mass slaughter to sell a mince pies aside, I think this just shows what corporations really think about honouring the war dead. Maybe they could dedicate an aisle to the fallen, maybe cereal or pop tarts? Thanks for pointing this out H. Have signed and made friends aware of it. xxxxxx

I have mixed feelings about this advert. On a superficial level, it's fairly well put together, if a little sentimental. It shows the war from the point of view of the soldiers on the ground, rather than that of the officers or the state. This is important, politically. Ultimately, it shows that the young and poor had to make the real sacrifices in what was one of history's greatest and most futile mass slaughters. Most of them didn't want to be involved in a long and protracted war. Ironically, it was meant to be 'over by Christmas'. The absence of any welfare state meant that signing up was a fairly straightforward choice for many working class lads, of many countries.

Fundamentally though, I have to disagree with the purpose of such an ad. It's exploiting the memory of those soldiers in order, as Helen said, to shift some mince pies. The football match is an episode most people are familiar with. The real message though seems to be lost, the whole point of the match wasn't about sharing, it was about solidarity. All those young working class men were sent to kill and be killed to serve the interests of their respective ruling classes. Sadly not much has changed. Sorry for being so cynical, but I don't think Sainsbury's have the integrity to pronounce on such matters.

It's a disgrace mate,it's so"clean"as well I was told as a young boy by elderly relatives who either fought in that awful war or heard the stories from relatives on leave,in one case,was subsequently killed.....there were corpses littering the fields,body parts,filth and shit.....I can't believe that around that board room table not one single person had a shred of courage to say the simple word"NO".....just to sell groceries on the anniversary of the war starting 100 years ago,one of the worst utterly tragic calamities in the whole history of the human race reduced to selling frozen fuckin chips,bog roll and Christmas tat......I am sure my relatives who died in that war,the Hilliers,the Wrights,the Tindalls and the Hawleys,along with all the other oooo MILLIONS who perished are all looking down thinking.....yeah well we died for fuck all but at least there's that advert there so people can remember us whilst they buy a trolley full of crap.....I could weep....I really could

I understand what you mean Al because it is a beautiful part of us as people that we get emotional at acts of humanity, that show the best in us all even in the face of unspeakable horror. There was a discussion about this on Facebook, where several forum friends gave their opinion – including me – and I was accused of being a left wing cynic!

I have sort of been feeling quite emotional about all this stuff recently. Probably a toxic mix of growing a year older, awareness of the age of my parents, and the centenary of this whole slaughter.

My dad has been quite upset by all the centenary stuff – he lost both his grandparents in World War One – one whose body was never found and honoured on the Menin Gate, the other of his wounds at a military hospital, at 34, leaving his widow to bring up seven kids on her own.

People don't need to tell me about the human element of war – both my grandparents never knew their fathers, growing up way before their time, supporting their families before widow's pensions and charities were there to help families of the war dead. The horror of it echoes through the generations, right up to mine.

A friend at the time also talked about her great grandfather, who refused to fight but was sent to the front as a stretcher bearer. He granny told her that, when he arrived home, he stared into space for days on end, awoke with night terrors, running round the house screaming.

My cynicism does not come from being typical or left wing. It comes from the sorrow passed down through my family, the loss of sons and fathers, the hardship, the hard hearts, the changing of lives forever, and not for the better, and not for justice, or the defeat of fascism, or the triumph of right, but for a sheer pointless waste and horror of it all and objecting to that being used to sell mince pies and pigs in blankets to an over-stuffed generation who could do well to learn about human values, which have nothing to do with how much your spend on your Christmas shopping.

I could weep and have before and I think that, somewhere along the line, collective experience of your family makes you what you are. Like to think that possibly, being a leftie, whether people think its cynical or not, is quite a fitting way to remember my granny's father and the waste of a little girl growing up without a daddy. xxx

No need to repeat my feelings about the avoidable filth that is war, however I have to say that the Sainsburys advert with its chiselled jawed Jack Wills type teenagers has me shouting at the tele in a way previously reserved for Question Time and coverage of Royal events.The most disgusting thing they've milked from it is to actually produce the 'Retro' bar of chocolate depicted and flog that too!!!And don't get me started on those fucking vomit inducing penguins.